BJP has 'selective amnesia' on Telangana's past: TRS

BJP has been demanding that the Telangana Government should officially celebrate September 17 as the "liberation day"

As the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) celebrated the "Telangana Liberation Day" on Saturday, the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) accused it of selective amnesia and said this political strategy to expand its presence would not work in the state.

"BJP has the habit of raising communal issue whenever they feel that there is an opportune time. Even during the time of agitation (for separate statehood for Telangana), we had always said this is a merger day, not a liberation day," TRS Lok Sabha member Kalvakuntla Kavitha said.

BJP has been demanding that the Telangana Government should officially celebrate the occasion as the "liberation day" as Hyderabad State was "liberated" through "police action" on September 17, 1948, more than a year after India got independence.

BJP considers the Nizam's rule in the erstwhile Hyderabad State as tyrannical, oppressive and autocratic and claims that Telugu language was discouraged as the medium of instruction in educational institutions during their period.

Kavitha noted that when Goa merged into India, the Central government called it liberation, while the Telangana (erstwhile Hyderabad State) operation in 1948 was termed as police action, and they never said liberation of Telangana.

"So, that jargon (liberation) was never used. And if you look at national perspective, India itself is union of many, many princely states. Now you want to go back and celebrate, what exactly you are trying to achieve?" Kavitha asked.

"You only want to recall the 1948 incident, what about 1969 incidents of Telangana agitation, what about 1952, what about 2001 ?...Many, many kids were killed. In 1969, 369 kids (students) were killed in police firing, BJP does not want to talk about it," Kavitha said.

"BJP-TDP (Telugu Desam Party) government was in power. No body wanted to talk about liberation day, why speak about it now? You can't have selective amnesia. When you speak about historical incidents, certainly the BJP has a habit of selective amnesia, very comfortably, conveniently they pick and choose the facts. We only say it's a merger day. We always observed it as a merger day, we will continue to do so," she said.

"Politically it won't work, because the BJP has negligible presence in Telangana. Just to increase their political visibility in Telangana, they have started to rake up this issue. People do not have any sentiment towards this particular issue, Congress does not talk about it, TDP does not talk about it (liberation)", Kavitha added.